Even this old dog can learn new tricks

Originally published: May 17, 2012

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It’s inevitable really. Take six guys, any six guys, give them each a motorcycle and, well, sooner or later, a race will ensue. Actually, any number greater than one is enough to initiate the trash talking. Truth be told, if we’re alone, we’ll just race ourselves.

It doesn’t matter if we’re old or young, rich or poor, experienced riders or complete newbies; we could even be the imminently responsible motorcycle journalists (he says, his keyboard fairly dripping sarcasm) Honda Canada has brought to its Spanish NC700 launch (See Page DT10). The equation always remains the same: Men plus motorcycles equals race.

We’ll race sport bikes. We’ll race dirt bikes. As much as we revile those awkward Can-Am Spyders, chances are we’ll race those, too. Scooters are not safe in our hands and pretty much every red-blooded male I know has drunkenly raced his kid’s tricycle and has the scars to prove it (OK, that might be just me).

The point I’m trying to make, of course, is that testosterone and speed are two ingredients essential to most males’ psyche. So, flaunting an entire passel of dirt bikes (even if they are little CRF100F minibikes) and what looks like a miniature oval dirt track at a group of ego-driven motojournalists is the proverbial red flag in the bull’s face; inevitably, there will be much charging to and fro. One just hopes it can be contained within the arena.

The only problem is that we’re at a riding school and, as anyone familiar with instructional colleges knows, there is nothing as earnest as a motorcycle riding instructor. Fun is not on the curriculum of any rider training school I’ve ever attended, so I shouldn’t be expecting any here either.

But this is Spain and even a short ride through Barcelona reveals a joi de vivre — at least on wheels — that belies the dire economic news dominating the Iberian peninsula. Indeed, we are told that hooning around on the little off-roaders is actually part of today’s instruction. It could all just be a desperate ploy to keep we ADD-ed moto-scribes from wandering off to chat up Spanish seÒoritas (again, that could be just me), but, whatever the case, we six cynical Canadian “experts” agree to a full day’s instruction, the play bikes our reward for the tedium surely to ensue.

Damned if we didn’t all learn something.

Honda Spain’s Safety Institute is unlike anything we have here in the Great White Frozen North. For one thing, it is owned, funded and run by the local Honda distributor. And, while Honda Canada is imminently supportive of private training facilities (donating scads of bikes to approved facilities) and runs the self-funded Junior Red Riders facility, having the entire program run corporately has advantages. The instructors are full-time employees and the selection of available bikes is incredible (from mini- to super-bikes and scads of scooters in between). And, since it’s in Mediterranean Spain, the school runs 11 months of the year; hence why, in its 20 years of operation, it’s trained 174,000 newbies, young and old alike.

What this means is that the school has the curriculum down pat, even for know-it-all, been-riding-for-30-years motojournalists. Indeed, besides the aforementioned motocross track, there’s a fairly complex pavement course, a tricky trials section and a low-mu (that’s me wanting to sound learned when all I had to say was slippery) wet section to demonstrate the wonders of anti-lock brakes on motorcycles. Even those who claimed not to have learned anything new admitted that the refresher course was a great way to greet the spring after a winter’s worth of motorcycle-riding rustiness.

By far the most edifying experience was riding the outrigger-equipped CBF600 and SH125 scooter used to demonstrate the benefits of anti-lock brakes. While ABS is a boon to automobiles, the technology is of even greater import to motorcyclists. Experienced riders learn to treat their front brakes with equal measures of respect and fear. Eighty per cent of a motorcycle’s stopping power comes from the front disc, yet locking the front tire almost always results in a crash. There are entire generations of bikers for whom using the front brake was verboten. I vividly remember the first time I tested the ground-breaking 1988 BMW K100’s anti-lock brakes; it took me at least 10 attempts before I squeezed the front brake lever hard enough to initiate ABS action. My mind said yes, but a certain nether region more atuned to pain and calamity kept overruling my right hand.

The outrigger bikes were liberating. Freed from the trepidation of sliding along on one’s butt, I was able to lock up the front brake and, for the first time in this motorcyclist’s life, experience a “crash” without the requisite trip to the hospital. As a demonstration of the benefits of anti-lock brakes on motorcycles, this exercise knows no equal.

Of course, that still left those aforementioned dirt bikes and that beckoning oval. Now, were I more mature or mindful of other people’s feelings, I would be reticent to reveal the result of our inter-media competition. But the aforementioned tricycle racing injuries have finally healed and, hell, I’m a guy, so the truth is we spanked ’em.